From Her Stove · Eastern Kentucky Launch price ends in --:--:-- An Almanac · No. III
Burl SizemoreAn Almanac · No. III

97 secrets every Appalachian grandmother kept in her kitchen. They stopped telling them.

Nobody decided it. The box came, and then the refrigerator, and then the grandchildren moved to Dayton and Detroit, and one day there was nobody standing at the stove to ask. She read her oven with the palm of her hand. She knew a curdling gravy by the sound it made. She could stretch one chicken over nine plates and nobody at the table knew it was stretched. She never owned a recipe card, because she could not write one. She told it all to the boy on the wood box by the stove. That was me. Nobody stood there after me. That is the whole reason it is written down now.

Open Her Kitchen → Count What Your Family Still Knows →
97Secrets she kept
97Recipes that prove them
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“

It says four hundred. Four hundred what?

Burl Sizemore · the last one she told
I.
The Book

Ninety seven of them. She told them to one boy at one stove.

The fire, the iron, the biscuit bowl, the bean pot, the springhouse, the cellar, the canner, and the list she said out loud once a month because she could not write it. Ten parts of one kitchen, in the order she taught them to me. Go through the ninety seven and mark each one — the ones your family still does, the ones you remember watching somebody do, and the ones nobody ever told you about. Then come back and tell me your number. I would like to know how much of her kitchen is left out there.

Illustrated PDF · 97 secrets · 97 recipes

Everything she knew at the stove, written down before it was gone.

She did not cook this way because it was quaint. She cooked this way because the store was eleven miles off, the money came once a month, and there were nine at the table. The hand in the oven door, the skillet she never washed with soap, the pot that was never empty, the shelf nobody was allowed to touch — every one of them existed so that a family could eat well on very little, every day of the year. This book is that kitchen, secret by secret, each with the recipe that proves it.

$67 $99 Save $32 Launch price — ends tonight
What you get for $67:
  • 97 Secrets From Her Kitchen — the story of each secret, how she did it, how to do it now, and the safe way today$67
  • 97 recipes from her stove — one after every secret, the dish that proves it, in real measures$29
  • One Trip to Town — her monthly list on paper you can print: the cupboard count, the list, the price book, the hard day shelf$17
  • The Iron and the Fire — a short field guide to the skillet and the stove, with a rescue card for a rusted pan$14
  • Ask Them While You Can — ten questions to ask the old people in your family, and cards for the recipes nobody wrote down$19
  • Lifetime Updates — every new secret remembered, no extra charge$21
  • Total value$167
  • You pay today$67
Get Her Kitchen · $67 →
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II.
The Math

What the box costs you.

Ten things a family kitchen spends money on every year. The left column is what they cost out of a box, a can and a store today. The right column is the same ten, done her way, with the number of the secret written down.

Out of the box Per year

Biscuit mix and canned biscuits$180
Boxed cornbread and cake mixes$150
Gravy packets and jarred gravy$90
Canned soup$210
Store pickles, kraut and relish$110
Jam, jelly and apple butter$95
Nonstick pans that wear out$60
Supper bought on "nothing in the house" nights$520
Leftovers and spoiled food thrown out$900
Things bought twice because nobody counted$240
Annual$2,555

2026 U.S. grocery and store prices for a family of four. The thrown-out food line follows published estimates of household food waste.

Done her way Per year

Flour, lard and buttermilk in a bowl · No. 20$40
Meal, bacon grease and a hot skillet · No. 33$25
The skillet bits, flour and milk · No. 28$8
The bone, the broth and the pot · No. 54$30
A crock, salt and the end of the garden · No. 72$25
Fruit, a kettle and a long stir · No. 74$30
One iron skillet, for life · No. 10$0
The hard day shelf · No. 93$40
The pot that was never empty · No. 57$0
The cupboard door list · No. 96$0
Annual$198

Every line here is one of the ninety seven, with what you need, how she did it and the recipe that proves it. Estimated values are a modeled basket, not a measured average.

She was not counting it. But the woman at that stove was keeping more than two thousand dollars a year in the house, and never once thought of it as money.
III.
What's inside

Exactly what you get for $67.

Ninety seven secrets in ten parts of one kitchen, every one followed by the recipe that proves it. Pick the ones that fit the kitchen you have — a woodstove, a gas range, or two electric eyes in an apartment.

An old Appalachian farmhouse kitchen at first light: a cast iron skillet of tall buttermilk biscuits and a skillet of pan gravy on a blue and white oilcloth, a wooden dough bowl of flour, a jar of milk, a crock of butter and an open tin recipe box of blank cards, with a woodstove glowing behind.
Her kitchen at first light. The recipe box is full of blank cards. That is why this book exists.
Section I — 9 secrets
The Fire
  1. 01Her hand in the oven door
  2. 02The flour test
  3. 03Banking the fire at night so the kitchen woke up warm and the stove was ready at four
  4. 04The hot eye and the cool corner
Section II — 10 secrets
The Iron
  1. 10The skillet she never washed with soap
  2. 11Hot before the fat
  3. 12Bringing back a skillet that had rusted in a barn for twenty years
  4. 13Why the cornbread skillet never fried fish
Section III — 11 secrets
Biscuits and Bread
  1. 20The well in the flour bowl
  2. 21Cold fat, warm hands, and how little she touched the dough
  3. 22Cutting straight down
  4. 23Buttermilk she made herself when there was none in the house
Section IV — 9 secrets
Cornmeal and Beans
  1. 31Soaking beans the night before, and the salt she added only at the end
  2. 32The ham bone that went through three suppers before the dog got it
  3. 33Cornbread with no sugar
  4. 34Bacon grease in a hot skillet before the batter goes in
Section V — 11 secrets
Keeping Without Ice
  1. 40The springhouse box
  2. 41Eggs kept good all winter in a crock
  3. 42Butter kept in brine, and how she knew it had turned
  4. 43The cellar
Section VI — 10 secrets
Stretching the Pot
  1. 51A cup of rice that turned a pot for six into a pot for nine
  2. 52Macaroni and tomatoes
  3. 53Gravy that made one chicken feed a whole table
  4. 54The bone, the broth and the soup that came after
Section VII — 10 secrets
Fixing What Went Wrong
  1. 61Too salty
  2. 62Scorched beans
  3. 63Lumpy gravy
  4. 64A cake that fell
Section VIII — 9 secrets
Putting Up
  1. 71How she knew a jar had sealed
  2. 72Kraut in a crock, and the weight she set on top
  3. 73Pickles crisp without anything from a store
  4. 74Apple butter stirred all day in a kettle in the yard
Section IX — 9 secrets
Sweets With No Sugar
  1. 80Molasses and honey in place of sugar
  2. 81Vinegar pie
  3. 82Jam cake
  4. 83Fried apple pies from dried apples in winter
Section X — 9 secrets
The Month in Her Head
  1. 89The list she said out loud and I wrote down, because she could not write
  2. 90The coffee can with lines scratched inside it
  3. 91The sugar crock with no spoon in it
  4. 92Rice divided into four jars the night she got home
Every secret also tells you where it stops.

A few things that kitchen did, we know better than to do now — the beans canned without a pressure canner, the pot left on the stove for a week, the honey on a baby's pacifier. The book says plainly which ones, and gives you the safe way today. Remembering her right means remembering the parts she got wrong, too.

IV.
Three pages from the book

This is the shape every one of the ninety seven takes.

The story at her stove, an engraving that shows how it worked, a photograph of the way it looks today, the steps, the safe way, what the box costs you, and the recipe — for every one of the ninety seven. Nothing is hidden behind the price.

Three pages from 97 Secrets From Her Kitchen laid on a dark table: No. 1, her hand in the oven door; No. 28, gravy from the skillet bits; No. 93, the hard day shelf.
Nos. 1, 28 and 93, as they are printed in the book — the engraving, the story and the recipe.
No. 1 — Her hand in the oven door
The partThe Fire
What you needOne hand
What it keepsAn oven you know
No. 28 — Gravy from the skillet bits
The partBiscuits and Bread
What you needFlour, milk
What it keepsSupper, stretched
No. 93 — The hard day shelf
The partThe Month in Her Head
What you needOne shelf
What it keepsA bad week, covered

Every one of the ninety seven carries what you need, what the box costs you and what it keeps. Some keep money, some keep a meal, and some only keep her.

What using the book looks like

Three ordinary moments, walked through the way the book walks through them. Illustrative scenarios built from the book — it is not out yet, so these are not customer reviews.

“
“My mother did number 63 and I never knew why.”
You read the page about the jar and the shake, and something comes back — a pint jar of flour and milk rattling in her hand by the stove, a long time ago. Now you know why there were never lumps. Tonight there is a jar in your hand.
No. 63 · Fixing What Went Wrong · The jar and the shake
“
“I put my hand in the oven door.”
The dial says four hundred. The thermometer you hang in there says something else. A month of counting against it, and your own hand starts telling you before the timer does. It is the first secret in the book, and the one people try first.
No. 1 · The Fire · Her hand in the oven door
“
“The best part is where it says stop.”
Not everything that kitchen did should come back. The book is plain about the canning shortcuts and the pot left out for a week — what she did, why she did it, and the safe way today. That is what makes the rest of it something you can trust.
Every secret · The safe way today
Burl Sizemore, an older Appalachian man with a long white beard, in an old farmhouse kitchen beside a cast iron woodstove.
V. · About the author

Burl Sizemore.

Burl Sizemore learned to cook sitting on the wood box beside his grandmother's stove in eastern Kentucky. She could not read or write, and she never once taught it like a lesson. She talked while her hands worked, and handed him things, and answered when he asked.

He was the last one standing at that stove, and that is the whole reason this book exists. When the last person who knows a thing stops, the thing stops with them — unless somebody writes it down. Each of the ninety seven is written for a kitchen today: what you need, how she did it, the safe way now, and the recipe that proves it.

She never had a recipe card. She had a hand that had never once lied to her, and one boy who was there to watch it.
VI.
Order the Book

$67 once. No subscription. Yours forever.

The book arrives as an illustrated PDF. Download instructions are emailed the moment your payment clears — usually inside a minute. Print the recipe you are making tonight and keep it by the stove.

Illustrated PDF · 97 secrets · 97 recipes

97 Secrets From Her Kitchen

Everything an Appalachian grandmother kept at the stove, in the cellar and in her head — secret by secret, the way she told it. Go through them and mark the ones your family still knows.

$67 $99 Save $32 Launch price — ends tonight
What you get for $67:
  • 97 secrets in ten parts of her kitchen$45
  • How she did it, and the safe way today, on every one$22
  • 97 recipes from her stove$29
  • One Trip to Town$17
  • The Iron and the Fire$14
  • Ask Them While You Can$19
  • Lifetime updates$21
  • Total value$167
  • You pay today$67
Get Her Kitchen · $67 →
Instant access · Pay once · Yours forever
Seven days, no questions asked.

Read it. Pick one secret and cook the recipe that proves it. If you decide within seven days that the book is not for you, ask for a refund and you will get it. You do not have to explain yourself, and you do not have to send anything back.

Secure checkout · Visa · Mastercard · PayPal · Apple Pay · 7-day refund
VII.
FAQ

Questions people ask before they click.

I do not have a woodstove or cast iron. Is this still for me?
Yes. Every secret is written for the kitchen you have, gas or electric, and tells you how to do it on a modern range. One iron skillet helps with about a third of them; the book tells you how to bring back an old one for nothing.
I can barely cook. Where do I start?
Start with the recipes. Every one has real measures and plain steps, and the story in front of it tells you the one thing the card never says. She started every child with biscuits, and so does the book.
Is the old way safe?
Not always, and the book says so. Every secret ends with the safe way today — refrigeration, canning times, internal temperatures — beside what she did and why. You keep the knowing and leave the risk.
My grandmother was not from Appalachia.
Then you will find her in here anyway. Most of the ninety seven were done in farm kitchens all over the country, under different names.
Is this the same as the Porch Almanac?
No. The Porch Almanac is the garden. This is the kitchen: the fire, the iron, the bread, the keeping and the stretching. None of the recipes in the Almanac are repeated here.
What format is it, and can I print it?
An illustrated PDF. Read it on a phone, tablet or computer, and print one recipe at a time. There is no app, no subscription and no login — the file is yours.
What if it turns out not to be for me?
Seven days, no questions asked, no need to send anything back. Email and the $67 comes back the same day.
Last call

Don't let what she knew stop at her stove.

Ninety seven secrets every Appalachian grandmother kept in her kitchen, and the recipe that proves each one. Most of them cost nothing but knowing. Today is the last day at $67 — --:--:-- left. Tomorrow it returns to $99.

Get Her Kitchen · $67 →
$99 tomorrow · 7-day refund · Instant PDF